I think JustinGuitar is wrong about playing slowly to get faster

allen

rocktron said:

Here are Ben Higgins' views on Speed Picking:-

Crikey! He doesn't hold back.

Tannin

I seldom have any difficulty playing fast enough to suit whatever piece I'm doing. 

No, I'm not demon-fast player! I just play as fast as the thing wants to go. Well, that's the theory.

In reality, I very often practice faster that the thing should be played. I tend to speed up little by little until I'm making too many mistakes, then back off a bit. 

No prizes for guessing I'm a "go at it full pelt until you figure it out man" through and through. Like others who use this method, I don't speed up little by little, I start fast and eliminate mistakes one by one. Ends up in the same place.

But every so often I hit something I can't play and after a number of attempts I realise that I'm not going to get it. THEN is the time to back off, go through it slowly, figure out exactly what notes I'm trying to play, see if there is an easier way to do it (different fingering, play it somewhere else on the neck, whatever), and work out the easiest method (maybe, for example, I need to play the previous chord in a non-intuitive way to position myself better for the hard bit).

Often that process works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes that process merely shows me that I'm trying to play something I  don't have the ability to do. It might be impossible. It might be possible but not something I will ever be able to do.

Or it might be something that I can't do because I lack one of the vital building blocks. For example, it might require a left-hand stretch I can't manage. Fine. It is time to put that tune aside and turn to other things, and time to make a mental note about adding some appropriate stretches to my practice routine.

Revisit the same tune a few months later and hey presto! I can reach it now! It doesn't sound good because I am only just barely reaching it and not quite fretting it properly, but I can start practicing that tune again. A few months later again, and it's sounding good. I've stopped thinking about it, it's just one more little skill mastered.

The point I'm trying to make here is that practice methods are like cricket shots. It is no earthly use playing a perfect square cut when the chap down the other end is bowling yorkers. You have to match the solution to the problem.

Lodious

Great video!  I think there is a lot of sense in what you are saying for linear picking or riffs. 

Where this approach is not appropriate is for something like fingerpicking, where the relationship between melody notes and bass notes is absolutely crucial and easy to gloss over by speeding up. If you try to play too fast, you will never get it to sound right, and sometimes, practicing painfully slowly in the only way to get it right. Once it clicks, the speed comes naturally and the piece can be played correctly at speed. It's pointless to rush it, as it's not a path that leads to being able to ever play it properly. 

p90fool

Are we playing music here or just trying to impress other guitar owners? Because speaking as someone who spent the 80s running before I could walk I'm 100% certain nobody else gives a fuck how fast you are. 

Obvious there are tiny niches out there for a bit of everything, but nobody has ever, in 40 odd years of playing music, asked me to play a shitload of notes per second. 

Devil#20

Did you contradict yourself at about 9min 20 second in whereby you said you practice by slowing down and then gradually speed up. You said at the start that the way to improve wasn't to try things slower. Just ended up confused. 

Lewy

p90fool said:

Are we playing music here or just trying to impress other guitar owners? 

Playing music. That Ok?

grappagreen

We are all different and everyone has to find their own way. Different perspectives are all equally valid and I honestly think that you have to at least give as many (sensible) approaches a go and see for yourself.

Whenever I see anything that states something along the lines of 'This is what you should do' I would much prefer it stated 'This is what you could do'

I've lost count of all the different things I've tried over the years and none of them were wasted time - finding something that doesn't work guides you towards what does.. for you!

Si

Greatape

Does any process make you better at making good musical choices at higher speed? 

Dave_Mc

Lewy said:

I also think that quite a lot of people who teach that way believe that's how they got fast but actually it's some other aspect of their musical experience - maybe playing with more advanced players where they had to hold on for dear life for example - that forced the speed, as opposed to what they thought was doing it.

I think that's a problem with teaching in general- I seem to recall reading somewhere that it's a known problem. An expert gets asked how to do what they're an expert in. The expert has largely forgotten what it's like to be a beginner, and proceeds to try to remember how they did it when they were starting out. Or tries to teach it how they feel they should have learnt it (even though they probably didn't learn like that at all).

I mean, look at all those videos on Youtube- "How I wish I'd learnt", or "What I wish I knew back when I was starting out". Almost everyone eventually makes one, and yet it didn't stop them from becoming an expert either, did it?

Greatape

Dave_Mc said:

Lewy said:

I also think that quite a lot of people who teach that way believe that's how they got fast but actually it's some other aspect of their musical experience - maybe playing with more advanced players where they had to hold on for dear life for example - that forced the speed, as opposed to what they thought was doing it.

I think that's a problem with teaching in general- I seem to recall reading somewhere that it's a known problem. An expert gets asked how to do what they're an expert in. The expert has largely forgotten what it's like to be a beginner, and proceeds to try to remember how they did it when they were starting out. Or tries to teach it how they feel they should have learnt it (even though they probably didn't learn like that at all).

I mean, look at all those videos on Youtube- "How I wish I'd learnt", or "What I wish I knew back when I was starting out". Almost everyone eventually makes one, and yet it didn't stop them from becoming an expert either, did it?

Surely an expert teacher in any discipline is constantly working on a pedagogy which is exactly suited to whatever level of student is appropriate at that time? Which suggests that quite a few of these YouTube teachers may not be very good teachers yet. 

Admittedly, was a noticeable problem with many lecturers when I was at university (not for music). 

bertie

digitalkettle said:

Roland said:

We can talk forever about situations, or people, where one approach works better than the other.

Roland devises new forum mission statement!

then let it be so

(said in a Brian Blessed voice)

Dave_Mc

Tannin said:

The point I'm trying to make here is that practice methods are like cricket shots. It is no earthly use playing a perfect square cut when the chap down the other end is bowling yorkers. You have to match the solution to the problem.

Were you spying on me when I played cricket at school?!?!?! Ok maybe not a yorker, but I definitely remember trying to square cut something on middle stump at one point (goes without saying I missed and got bowled)...

Seriously, though, I pretty much agree with your approach there (I didn't quote it to save space), that's pretty much what I do.

Lodious said:

Great video!  I think there is a lot of sense in what you are saying for linear picking or riffs. 

Where this approach is not appropriate is for something like fingerpicking, where the relationship between melody notes and bass notes is absolutely crucial and easy to gloss over by speeding up. If you try to play too fast, you will never get it to sound right, and sometimes, practicing painfully slowly in the only way to get it right. Once it clicks, the speed comes naturally and the piece can be played correctly at speed. It's pointless to rush it, as it's not a path that leads to being able to ever play it properly. 

That's a good point. I assumed they were talking about shredding (they usually are), but I've been trying to learn fingerpicking recently, and I'm still at the "painfully slow" stage... 

jimification

IMO (as someone that spent far too much of my youth in the "Shrapnel" zone) I think for many people, something economical might be the most sensible approach. By economical I don't mean the mechanics, I mean the practice method and proportion of practice time: It can be a very high time cost for a skill that isn't likely to be used much. 

Power-Beef

.

Lewy

Greatape said:

Does any process make you better at making good musical choices at higher speed? 

Ear training and fretboard visualisation I guess. From what I can tell, though, there comes a threshold where a level of preplanning and organisation is required and whist things may still be improvisational in nature, the player is triggering packages of notes rather than thinking about the merit of each individual one.

bertie

allen said:

rocktron said:

Here are Ben Higgins' views on Speed Picking:-

Crikey! He doesn't hold back.

no,  but I wish he would

Greatape

Lewy said:

Greatape said:

Does any process make you better at making good musical choices at higher speed? 

Ear training and fretboard visualisation I guess. From what I can tell, though, there comes a threshold where a level of preplanning and organisation is required and whist things may still be improvisational in nature, the player is triggering packages of notes rather than thinking about the merit of each individual one.

It's interesting that the number of guitar players who improvise at high speed and also musically are very very few in number. 

And yet, as a species (guitarists), we emphasize playing speedily over deepening our musicality. 

"It's much more difficult to play something worthwhile, musical or maybe even eloquent, over simple chord progressions - say, three triads - than it is to play something over a lush, dense and complicated chord sequence, which suggests almost limitless possibilities. 

The whole notion that simple music is less profound than complex music is patently absurd. What touches the heart isn't necessarily what is most difficult or most complex. What touches the heart is purity of expression and the investment of emotion. Craft is very important, but it will never be an end in itself."" From an interview with [Pat Metheny]

Sporky

Greatape said:

And yet, as a species (guitarists), we emphasize playing speedily over deepening our musicality. 

Yup - there's often genuine horror at the idea of learning theory, or to read proper dots & squiggles notation. Usually with protestations that either will result in being less creative, from people knocking out pub blues and covers at best. 

Greatape

Sporky said:

Greatape said:

And yet, as a species (guitarists), we emphasize playing speedily over deepening our musicality. 

Yup - there's often genuine horror at the idea of learning theory, or to read proper dots & squiggles notation. Usually with protestations that either will result in being less creative, from people knocking out pub blues and covers at best. 

Just speaking the words you know faster and louder doesn't add much if any meaning or depth. Equally, you don't necessarily need a huge vocabulary to express profound ideas. I refer back to Pat. 

Reading helps and I would encourage it, but it's not essential, and some of the best players profess to have crap reading skills (Robben Ford). But... everyone should work on rhythm, internalising pulse, understanding chord construction etc. It massively opens horizons. 

Sporky

Not essential, but being able to read and transpose opens up the ability to plunder an incredible wealth of musical ideas.